The Department of Health is planning to stockpile huge numbers of extra facemasks for clinicians to use in preparation for a possible pandemic of swine influenza.

Keeping the public informed is also being treated as a priority as the government is putting together an information leaflet that will be sent to every household in the United Kingdom next week.

An outbreak of swine flu is thought to have killed around 159 people in Mexico, although cases officially confirmed by the World Health Organization put the death toll at seven, with confirmed cases of flu found in people in Scotland, the United …